Mumbai: ‘Anees Ansari was to be promoted just before arrest’

Anees Ansari was a bright 24-year-old, doing well at his job with a multi-national company, one who had never stepped on the wrong side of the law. Till he was arrested for plotting to blow up a school.

Anees Ansari was a bright 24-year-old, doing well at his job with a multi-national company, one who had never stepped on the wrong side of the law. Till he was arrested for plotting to blow up a school.

“Just before he was arrested, he was to receive a promotion at work,” said an ATS officer.

Ansari had applied for a passport just months before his arrest, and ATS suspect he may have had plans to go overseas for jihadi activities.

ATS said Ansari participated in radical jihadi chatrooms and had been on the scanner of the agencies for a while, but was arrested only after he tried learning how to make a Thermite bomb and started talking of blowing up a school.

Thermite is not considered as explosive but can create brief bursts of high temperature in a small area.

Ansari, a resident of Kurla, has three brothers and his father is retired. His mother is a house wife.